Here's what you need to know before undergoing a building project with a contractor but no architect.

A familiar scene in the Benoit home: Peter paints at the Steelcase desk—"I do all my work here," he says—while Ando sits nearby, waiting for attention.

Agustín Hernandez's home office.

An installation by Willem Cole hangs in the gallery, which leads to an open stairway to the office and private bedrooms upstairs.

Designed by Jagoda, the door swings open to fit in front of a bookshelf.

A small office for Dorothee, furnished with a desk by German architect Egon Eiermann and an Eames chair, overlooks the street.

An office nook and library can participate in the open plan or disappear behind pocket doors.

Pricing is not yet available for ENSAMBLE, but a single board of cholguán retails for about $5. By keeping assembly simply and using glue to join the system, the Andes House hopes to make it a cost-effective solution for the office and beyond.

We love this sleek home office design layout, where steel details contrast mesquite flooring throughout the home, including at the pathway to the "crow’s nest" office. It's also a great option if you're looking for home office ideas for small spaces.

Two converted shipping containers (left) now house offices for Shoup’s design/build firm. “Perhaps the most successful aspect of turning this into a place to live and an office rather than just have this shop space was moving it towards real indoor-outdoor living,” he says. Taya Shoup, a landscape designer, has refined her husband’s vision for the property with a courtyard and plantings. Photo by building Lab inc.

In the cheerily outfitted office, a Herman Miller Embody chair lets Shino stay comfortable on business calls that can last for hours.

Tanya, Chris, Jackson, and Zeke spend much of their day outside.

Lara's home office consists of a MacBook Air and Ferruccio Laviani Abat-Jour lamp for Kartell.

Tagliabue made sense of the soaring volume in the library by installing double-height custom bookcases that can be accessed via a catwalk.

In his home office, Wardell runs his online art gallery Chester's Blacksmith Shop and researches his next project: opening a boutique hotel in New Zealand. His nephew peeks down from the "napping nook" secreted above the office. The desk is from Room & Board.

French doors line one wall that extends from the library to the first-floor sitting room and office.

Architectural ispiration and exhibition posters fill the walls of Juhl's home office. Two chairs of Juhl's design are placed on the side of his desk, designed in 1945.

The copper-covered volume extends from the first floor, where it contains coat and shoe storage.

Clad in Western red cedar siding and punctuated with floor-to-ceiling windows, this minimalist two-bedroom home boasts sunrise views over the Sonoma hills.

Although Design Army is a technologically cutting edge design firm, projects still need to be handcrafted sometimes. An upper shelf holds their design awards overflow from the conference room and Pum's hats add a bit of swagger to the red head mannequins above.

Mark Fekete and Viviana de Loera of MARK+VIVI transformed a former tire shop in the Verdun borough of Montreal into a welcoming home-office, exposing beams on the ground floor and making liberal use of locally sourced Canadian plywood.

Design Army's work-a-day tools and design library.

“The backyard, which was kind of the focus of the project, was overgrown and quite disconnected from the house itself,” said architect Nigel Parish. The glass doors of the addition open onto a patio and lawn where the kids can play.

By acting as both the designer and general contractor, MARK+VIVI was able to complete the renovation for just $150 per square foot.

Creative Direction The arrowhead-shaped corner at the end of the living room evolved from the need to accommodate a standard sliding-glass-door module. “It would have been astronomically expensive to custom-build it,” says Chris Bardt. This architectural gesture— the arrow “points” toward the river—“enabled us to be very generous with the view area without having to extend the entire house.”

The facade was outfitted with a commercial-grade storefront window.

Intelligent design: The future of the office is about providing a balanced response to the environment and the person in the office—at home, in the park, on a plane, or wherever the “office” happens to be.

The room also features built-in bookcases fabricated by Earthbound Industries and a vintage Sesann sofa by Gianfranco Frattini for Cassina.

Eliza, a writer, and Anthony, a music professor, both gained new office spaces. Eliza’s office is positioned against the angled storefront window, with a custom, site-built writing desk. The slant of the garage addition serves an aesthetic and functional purpose: in addition to being visually dramatic and eye-catching, the curve enables more interior volume without occupying a larger footprint. Adjustable shelving by ISS and colorful clip-on bookends from Vernon Library Supplies complete the space.

The bathroom is on the second level.

Fekete and de Loera at work in their new space.

The architects carved these bookshelves into the drywall above the kitchen.

By living "above the store" in the most literal sense, Fekete and de Loera hope to set an example for sustainable, neighborhood-oriented living.

Boxy Rebellion “I like simple shapes, and for a house,” says Winterhalder, “a box is very good.” The two downstairs bathrooms are located in freestanding larch-covered cubes; the kitchen island is resoundingly rectilinear; and a square-shaped area in the guest bedroom serves as a home office, where Winterhalder designs UV-blocking children’s beach wear for her label, Beach Heroes. Measure Twice When determining the height of the concrete blocks that form the outer wall of the kitchen island, the couple took a hands-on approach. “We measured our coffeemaker and a bottle of oil, and that’s how much higher we made the concrete blocks than the counter,”Winterhalder says. The blocks themselves were made to measure by a concrete supplier.

They restored small alcoves to rooms including the office (shown here) and living room and worked carefully with the existing windows. They also hunted down a craftsman, Marc Ablasou, to install oak floors in a herringbone pattern—a touch that subtly complicates Safdie’s aesthetic. In the office, the mirrored console is vintage and the Grand Prix chair is by Arne Jacobsen for Fritz Hansen.